Landowners responsibilities and Liabilities

[drinksloe]

 

Alright

 

Looking for a bit of advice, sort of new to being a (small) landowner with trees on my ground.

 

Got a couple of fairly basic questions

 

Wot liabilities does the landowner have regarding trees on his ground and if they can affect others?

It's only a small piece of ground but there is a private access road throu it and a few other houses scattered about throu it.

 

Do i need to inspect all the tree's on a regular basis (well I do anyway as I walk about) but do I need to document it (number trees and log it in a book) or do I need a 'real' experts opinion?

 

Also do I need special home insurance to cover if a tree does any damage to a 3rd parties property (to be fair not many trees could really any other houses)

 If a disaster happens is the tree owner liable or just the home owner (definitely no root issues as I've read on here how complicated they can be)

Trees are mainly hardwoods of varying ages but a lot of mid/mature trees esp Sycamore, but all sorts really

 

 

Also got a couple of eleccy cables (both HV and LV) and a BT cable, we've had a lot of snow recently and I noticed a twin stemmed Sycamore has split at the root with the weight, both stems hung up in other trees very near the LV power lines (1 stem near ABC cable other near old live cables within 2m's).

I'm I responsible for them? Or should I phone the local power supplier to warn them? And they'll come out and cut them for free.

Obviously too close for me to do anything with? Or should I safely put a rope over them and try to tie them up away from the wires.

They could stay hung up for a while or if the wind was wrong they could come down.

 

Finally on a similar note I have a tall skinny birch tree growing way over the top of a BT cable, I had to winch it up in the middle of the snow as was really bending with the weight, it would off took the cable and a shed roof down if it snapped.

Would BT come out and take the tree down? Or if I cut it and it goes wrong wot happens with a BT cable? Slap on wrist, fines???

If it wasn't for the shed roof I reckon I would of been better letting the tree come down and take the cable out, been wanting the tree down for a while

 

Cheers for any advice

[Gary Prentice]

The National Tree Safety Group website has a couple of downloads explaining landowners liabilities, it’s worth a read.

[daltontrees]

Liability - Gary has pointed you in the right direction about liability, NTSG does this issue to death. But it's simple. Check the trees regularly and you have nothing to worry about as long as you act on any concerns you find that could reasonably cause harm to neighbours or visitors. Get someone in to do it if you feel you're not up to it or theres's s specialist issue beyond your knowledge, and act on any advice.

Insurance - damage to 3rd party property is usually covered by building insurance, as long as you haven't been negligent by not acting on tree risks. If your policy doesn't over it, get one that does. It shouldn't cost much more, and you don't need to flag up trees unless the insurer asks you to in the proposal form. Ove rht e years I have seen policies covering less and less, so unless you pay for a decent policy you're in for surprises if you claim against a cheapo policy.

Power lines - the standard 'wayleave' form power companies is quite simple, probably too simple. You let it have cables in your airspace (whether for your property or for elsewhere, whether for money or for free) and there are two key points of agreement. The company can "fell or lop in a woodman like manner any tree or hedge on the Property which obstructs or interferes with the Works". And you  must not "do or cause or permit to be done on the Property anything likely to cause damage or interference of any kind to the Works". This leaves the question of damage from falling trees open to resolution by common law i.e. the answer is not immediately clear. Generally if your trees cause damage (as with general liability as discussed above) and you foresaw it or should have, and did nothing to stop it damaging cables, it would be your fault. If in doubt, get BT or power company out to advise. They might say it's your problem, but they might drop cables temportarily to make felling easy, or switch lines off for a day to make it safe.

BT might just fix a breakage on the spot, because (in my experience) it's more hassle to report it as a breach of wayleave adn get its solicitors onto you. I have never known a leccy company to take that relaxed view, possibly because the costs and logistics of repair are bigger.

[roys]

Good reply by Jules, just to add a little bit of my own experience, I have some land with trees, the previous owner didn't sign a wayleave and didn't allow power companies onto the land.

As soon as I owned it I got in touch with the power company wayleave dept. and informed them, they fairly swiftly sent out an inspector followed by a squad of guys who cleared the land under the lines, they were just about touching the bare 11kV line and they were touching an ABC.

It is now inspected regularly and light clearing done about every 5 years I think.

Scottish Power Wayleave guys were very good / helpful to deal with.

[drinksloe]

Aye cheers for all the advice, i'll have a good look throu that website.

 

I'm in about most of the trees almost every day, and while I'm not as clued up on diseases etc as many on here are I'll be better than ur average landowner

I take it there is no

 

Aye the power boys do come round and keep the lines clear, where just round last year I think.

The problem with the LV lines is the clearance isn't that far back.

I reckon if 1 branch snaps off the stem will twist it towards the powerlines as it falls. Its not massive but could have just enough crown to catch on the lines

 

How would the power companies know if u've seen the problem?

 I take it I'm now far more liable than I would of been as i've noticed it than if it was in the middle of a wood and just fell onto the lines

The adjoining timber/land to me has trees come down over the HV lines regularly, often 1/2 a year

 

 

[voj maintenance]

I'll share a recent experience I had with BT on a job in a church yard. There were two cables running from a house, through the yard to a pole outside the yard. So thought I'd do the right thing and contact BT to get them down as the work I had to do would have snapped them, no way around it. Well they charged £190 to take it down and £190 to put it back up. The advice from the engineer when he came, let them snap and say the tree came down and done it.

[Gary Prentice]

I wonder what the penalty would be if you disconnected them, felled the tree and reconnected them and then got caught?

 

Not that I’d suggest doing that or mending them yourself

[openspaceman]

41 minutes ago, Gary Prentice said:

I wonder what the penalty would be if you disconnected them, felled the tree and reconnected them and then got caught?

 

Not that I’d suggest doing that or mending them yourself

I just did this at home, Openreach wanted a minimum of £140 and up to £250 to disconnect and reconnect when I had the windows replaced so I did it myself, less than 5 minutes each time.

 

I still have some jellies left over from 87 when we were given them by an telephone engineer after I broke the wire going to a peer working for the admiralty. The connection at the pole was then two jellies and a spiral lashing  so an easy job to lay the line on the floor first. As to penalty, what can they do, it's a civil matter and they would need to prove a loss.

 

IIRC there's 70V applied to the line if it rings but only a small voltage normally. In the days before internet fax machines were a bit sensitive to polarity changes if the wires got swapped.

[Gary Prentice]

Jelly providing BT engineers ya got to love them...